Photoshop Express

[nicolespag]

I know I'm always looking for free alternatives to editing and modifying pictures, so when I heard that Photoshop was releasing a free version of there software I thought 'ya right'.  But I just checked it out and since there is a category for Photography here I thought I would share my little find  

The service in general is nice and allows you to store up to 2gb of images for free! Also Adobe does what they know best which is editing and have created a simple way to edit those uploaded photos.  With Photoshop Elements being $80 and standard Photoshop much more, this looks like a nice alternative to those who are looking for a service like this. https://www.photoshop.com/express/

The only negative I see so far is it's only available in the US, but it is beta so I'm sure they will open it up soon.

 

[Dan Clark]

I joined up and tried it.  From an ease-of-use perspective, it's great.  And I like the UI.  However, it may take some time to create a workflow to share images. 

Right now it's got some limitations.  The biggest is that it doesn't allow you to downsize your images.  This includes reducing the overall image size and reducing the pixel depth (making the file smaller without changing the image size).  That said...

The tools and usability are the best that I've seen of the several photosharing sites I've used.  Also, I took a look at the T's & C's.  From my brief review, it appears that Adobe does NOT take away any copyright from the photographer (you and me).  This is critical.

Overall, I like it.

Regards,

Dan.

p.s., When I reviewed the terms of one photo sharing site about a year ago, it looked you lost ownership rights when you uploaded the images to their site.  I.e., you were signing away your copyright.  It scared the !@$# of me and I didn't join. 

 

[merklebob]

you dont need to get photoshop if your just doing photos.  adobe years ago cut the photo editing featchure out of photoshop and created photo elemnets.  that will do 98% of the editing of photo shop at a reduced price.  i got the phot elenment 5.0 a yr ago xmas for $60 .  thats far better than even the PS up grades [ i paid 400 for the CS2 ext version].

 

[CharlesWilson]

you dont need to get photoshop if your just doing photos.  adobe years ago cut the photo editing featchure out of photoshop and created photo elemnets.  that will do 98% of the editing of photo shop at a reduced price.  i got the phot elenment 5.0 a yr ago xmas for $60 .  thats far better than even the PS up grades [ i paid 400 for the CS2 ext version].

I had gotten Photoshop Elements 2.0 when I bought my slide/negative scanner 4 years ago. I recently upgraded to version 6.0 which I think will suit my needs for the foreseeable future. It is a relatively easy to use product with a lot of capabilities. I actually keep all of my photos on an external hard drive, and can use the drive on any machine with Photoshop Elements installed, as long as I can map the drive to E:. (I had to reassign a DVD drive on one of my machines in order to do that.)

 

[Dan Clark]

I have PS Elements V6 and PS CS3.  I like Elements a lot, but the image sorting and management software has got a pretty big bug if you have a lot of images.  I imported about 14,000 and the catalog became corrupted.  Apparently this is a known, unresolvbed bug.

Regards,

Dan.

 

[CharlesWilson]

Dan,

The reason I upgraded to V6 was because the V2 software got the catalog corrupted at about 6000 images. I only have about 8000 now, but the number is growing. Your message is not one of encouragement. I guess I will be backing up my catalog on a regular basis, so that when I hit the limit, I can revert back to a working catalog, and start up an additional one.

Thanks for the heads up!

Charles

 

[Dan Clark]

Charles,

I hate to say this, but I'm not sure if backing up the catalog will help.  Sorry.  I tried everything.  Didn't work for me.    I switched to CS3 and Lightroom.  CS3/Bridge and Lightroom are much more stable and (to my surprise) much faster.  No corruption so far. 

This whole issue bothers me.  I think paying more for more functionality is reasonable.  Paying more just to get a stable product is NOT reasonable.  I think Adobe needs to focus more on quality control and not adding more features.

Regards,

Dan.

 

[merklebob]

i dont use the catolog.  and never will.  creat you own system using the directory system on the hard drive.  i use two large drives to story my photos on.  one is a working system and the other is a backup.  about 4 times a yr i creat a cd/dvd to back up both HDs.  along with the cd/dvd are thumb nails of the pictures on the disks.